How To Start A Social Media Agency: And Make Money In 30 Days Or Less

If you’ve been considering starting a business that you can work from anywhere, getting into social media marketing makes total sense.

In this article, I will give you an overview of why I think starting a social media marketing today is a great idea and how you can make money in 30 days or less.

Let’s roll.

Social Media Management Market Size

While social media marketing is not a new business idea, the market forecast presents a bright future for anyone with online marketing skills who loves social media and is open to doing the work it takes to provide excellent service.

The global social media management market size will grow to USD 17.7 billion by 2023. Source. Market size matters when it comes to starting a new business. However, market size isn’t the only factor. You also need to consider the market needs.

Forbes reported that 60% of small business owners say they haven’t seen any return on investment from their social media efforts.

Challenges Small Business Owners Face On Social Media

If you Google the top challenges that small business owners face when it comes to their social media marketing, you’ll find this list of social media challenges:

Challenge 1: So many platforms to choose from and not knowing where to focus.

Challenge 2: Lack of resources to meet the users’ expectations.

Challenge 3: It’s difficult to measure conversions.

Challenge 4: There aren’t enough hours in a workweek.

Challenge 5: Not knowing how to set up the right goals.

According to Forbes, it takes 32 hours a month to manage a single social media platform correctly, that’s roughly 6-8 hours per week. Only 25% of small business owners spend 6-10 hours per week on social media. This isn’t because they underestimate the value; they just don’t have the time.

What Pains A Social Media Marketer Solve?

Social media management helps users with a wide variety of tasks to develop their social channels and effectively gain visibility amongst social media users.

A key factor to generate clients as soon as possible is your unique value proposition. All you need is to describe the pain that you’re trying to solve with your services, for a specific market.

A very simple way to craft your UVP is taking the 5 challenges listed above and turn one or two into your UVP.

Example of how to present your unique social media marketing value proposition:

I do social media marketing for business owners who want to turn social media accounts into income-generating channels and have no time to lose.

In this example, you’re solving 2 pains for small business owners, so they will see 2 benefits:

Save time
Make more money

Now that you have your UVP, your next step is your business identity.

To make things very simple, start with your name. Buy a couple of domain names (including yours if it’s available) in GoDaddy.com.

Make sure your online first impression is polished. What do I mean with this?

You have a professional Facebook profile and a business page
Your Instagram is a business profile
Your LinkedIn BIO is updated
Your business is listed in Google (this is free)

Crafting Your Elevator Speech As A New Social Media Management Agency

When you’re about to start and want to bring clients as quick as possible, it’s perfectly ok to pitch small business owners with the following message:

Hello, I’m ______. I’m about to launch my social media marketing agency. I would love to partner with small business owners who see the value in having a personalized and reliable social media specialist who can do the heavy lifting while generating conversions. Since I am starting and want to build a portfolio, the first 10 clients will have a special rate.

Share this message with everyone you know.

Try to come up with a list of at least 100 names so you can get to those 10 new clients as soon as possible.

Facebook Groups are a great resource to find business owners who want to collaborate with emerging marketers. In case you’re interested, I lead 2 Facebook Groups and can connect you with some opportunities. Click here to join my Marketing for Greatness Network.

Now that you have the tools you need to prospect, let’s discuss pricing.

How Much To Charge For Social Media Marketing?

Watch out for platforms like Fiverr.com, Upwork.com, and Freelancer.com. They have freelancers who are willing to offer social media management services at very low rates. I want to give you the heads up on how to handle those business owners who think that social media management is going to cost them $5 per hour.

Stay away from business owners who want premium services paying $5 per hour rate.

Set up your minimum hourly rate (even if you don’t disclose this with your future client). If you’re not confident about charging these prices, getting certified in social media marketing will help.

Social Media Marketing Pricing Plans

Social media beginner level: $15- $20 per hour. Expect to work about 10 hours a week between your work and research. Total of hours per month: 45. Average monthly fees: $750.

You could consider discounting your learning time, so your rate could be $600 per month.

Social media intermediate level: $30- $50 per hour. Factor your time spent on strategy and a fee from a social media manager, beginner level, so you can get more clients. 25 hours per month at $50 is $1,250. Expect to pay your manager by tasks, about $200 per account, so you have a net of $1,000.

You could get paid $2,000-$5,000 a month if you add other projects into the mix and create social media marketing packages, with add-ons such as:

Copywriting for website
Lead pages
Email marketing management
Additional platforms such as Youtube, Pinterest, Houzz, Etsy, etc.

How To Find Social Media Marketing Clients

I hope you’re excited about the possibility of owning a social media marketing agency. Hey! Imagine if you get 5 clients at $600 that’s $3,000 per month while working from home in your PJs!

Finding clients is all about leads!

Memorize this: leads are the heart of your business.

Just one thing, please! A lead is not a lead until it shows an interest in your offer. When you create your list of 100’s of names, those are NOT leads. Those are suspects. Once you pitch them and they want more information, they are prospects. And once they actually accept a meeting with you, they are leads.

How To Find Social Media Marketing Clients

So, how can you find leads then?

My Top 3 Lead Generation Activities

You will be surprised here! I’ve built 4 businesses: a law firm, 2 e-commerce businesses, and a marketing firm, without ANY advertising.

My top 3 lead generation activities have been:

Word of mouth
Organic marketing online
Networking events

Why should Marketers care about WOMM?

If you could master what has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing—the one that consumers trust above all others and the one that is most likely to drive sales for your company — would you instead choose to ignore it or leave it to chance?

Seriously! Start with WOMM. Work with that list and pitch your suspects without any hesitation. If you think you need help with prospecting skills, take a few hours a week to learn how to prospect. And remember, practice makes perfect.

Learn about Success Club- $10 a month will give you access to members-only content, marketing tools, and more!

Partnership marketing will be your next step.

8 Effective Partnership Marketing Examples

A great way to get clients faster is through partnerships. I’m not talking about partners who share equity. I’m referring to marketing partners who can generate win-win opportunities.

Some of the most effective marketing partnerships to consider:

Affiliation: Known as affiliate marketing. It’s a collaborative effort where the primary brand offers a product or service and the secondary brand benefits from commissions earned per lead or sale.

Content: Content partnerships can happen when brands collaborate to either a) produce content or b) share links. Link sharing means linking to the partner’s content from their own site. This provides exposure, aligns both brands together, and advances SEO.

Distribution: Where one partner agrees to cross-market or bundle another partner’s product or services into their own distribution channels to target the agreed customer base. This can happen by cross-marketing and/or creating bundles.

Charitable: A primary brand sponsors or markets itself with a charitable organization or cause. You can promote their cause and they promote your event. This helps with brand awareness and cultural influence.

Joint products or services: For example, you offer social media management and our firm offers SEO. The key here is that the service is an amalgamation of both products aiming at mutual target audiences. Example: white label products.

Licensing: Licensing is a business arrangement in which one company gives another company permission to manufacture its product using its brand image for an agreed payment or partnership.

Loyalty: Loyalty program or ambassador program. A retention marketing technique that offers consumers a reward in return for increased usage. Have you heard about Instagram ambassadors? That’s what this is about!

Sponsorship: The marketing tactic of placing a brand alongside a particular event, displaying itself as a partner or supporter, with the objective to increase brand recognition and reputation.

Consider Niche Marketing: Facebook Marketing Agency Or Instagram Marketing Agency

There’s a good chance that you meet an established marketing agency who is serving accounts with bigger budgets and need a platform-specific service.

You could market particular social media services such as:

Facebook community management and Facebook Groups admin
Instagram marketing, Instagram outreach
Facebook chat management
Customer service chat
Appointments management
Instagram stories
Instant posts
Facebook live coordinator
CRM integration
Shopping cart management

… Just to name a few.

Social Media Marketing Tools

I’ve constructed this guide to help entrepreneurs and small business owners without unlimited marketing budgets understand the erratic world of social media.

This ultimate guide gives you my favorite social media marketing tools that you can use to boost your social media without breaking your bank account.

I’m here to simplify your game by telling you exactly which tools I use as a small business owner and strategist with over 10 years in digital marketing.

My Go-To Social Media Scheduling Tools

I will recommend you tools that will help you plan and schedule posts a month ahead.

Scheduling Tool #1: Social Media Marketing Planner

You’ve probably seen fancy calendars and planners. I’m actually not a big fan of those scrapbooking style tools.

I rather get things done. I guess it comes with having a strict agenda and plenty of things to do.

So, for simplicity, your calendar can be just a Word Doc or Google Doc.

Here’s the format I use to plan my social media marketing every month:

Just think about this, on a Google document, super simple.

Part 1: Theme of the month: Growth. We want to share content that inspires, educates, and invites people to consider us for their business growth needs.

Part 2: Target audience: small business owners in their first 3 years of their business.

Part 3: Events of the month: Webinar week 2 and Networking event, week 4.

Part 4: Blogs to publish during the month: Ultimate guide of social media and Instagram tutorial

Part 5: Marketing Campaigns: #MembersMonday #SummerSocial

Scheduling Tool #2: Facebook Creator Studio

Your Facebook Business Page comes with the option to schedule posts in the future. Now with Creator Studio, if you have multiple pages, you can post and schedule multiple pages, all from the same dashboard.

Creator Studio integrates Instagram as well. You are able to see Instagram’s content library from Facebook. We still can’t post to Instagram from Creator Studio, but I won’t be surprised if that will come soon.

Forced to wrong size: 774x382, natural is 1328x655!

Scheduling Tool #3: Facebook Group Scheduler

Facebook Groups are a great way to grow your audience on social media. It’s by far one of my favorite social media tools.

Scheduling Tool #4: Hootsuite | Buffer | MeetEdgar

In full transparency, I use Hootsuite for my agency. I like how authenticates and I can just add team members and assign accounts. So, for agencies, I believe they are staying competitive.

For solopreneurs, Hootsuite’s new pricing model might not make sense.

You only need a scheduler like Hootsuite for your Twitter and LinkedIn, since Facebook has its own scheduler. Buffer is a good alternative.

For those of you looking for more robust social media management tools that can offer curation and content suggestions, MeetEdgar is a great option.

Scheduling Tool #5: Later | Planoly

For those of you who are 100% Instagram marketing, you then need a social media management tool that specializes in the platform.

My research narrowed to 2 options and I chose Later.com. I liked their ability to add teams so I can get my team working on our clients while still having access to the accounts. Some of my clients use Planoly.com and are very happy too.

Later and Planoly also work on Pinterest.

Scheduling Tool #6: Sprout Social

Sprout Social does what Buffer and Hootsuite do but in a more complex way, but this platform is best for small-large agencies as their analytics feature beats Hootsuite and Buffer hands down. They provide full reporting details for their premium members, breaking down each account in bits. You can even compare your competitor’s figure and see where they are and how best to tackle them. It’s that deep.

The downside with Sprout Social is the fact that it is far more expensive than Buffer and Hootsuite put together and they have no free plan, just a 30-day trial. Sprout Social works with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Read my Ultimate Guide on Social Media Marketing Tools 2020 Edition.

Marketing For Greatness – Marketing Partnerships

We love to partner with social media managers who are looking to get more clients and want to learn best practices, strategies, and advice from marketing & sales experts.

We provide resources, templates, scripts, training, and certification, and powerful connections to help you thrive.

Let’s make it happen!

Schedule a virtual coffee where we can discuss how to collaborate.

February 5, 2020August 21, 2022

Digital Marketing Courses Entrepreneurs Need

Digital marketing skills are critical not only to those actually working in the field but also to entrepreneurs. In thought leadership, there is always something new to learn and implement.

Are you wondering what digital marketing skills you could be learning in 2020? Keep reading!

Before we dig into all the digital marketing tactics you could potentially learn in 2020, and your mind goes into TikTok effects, let’s take 3 steps back and define what digital marketing actually is. In order to do that, we must first start with the broad concept of marketing.

What Is Marketing (Let’s Cover The Basics So You Can See The Big Picture)

Marketing, as a discipline, involves all the actions a company undertakes to draw in customers and maintain relationships. Marketing encompasses a large array of topics and ideas.

When I deliver marketing education during speaking engagements and strategy sessions, I like to begin with the general ideas of marketing. I clarify the definition of marketing by differentiating great marketing versus noise.

What is “marketing noise?” Let’s dive deeper.

The steps taken to make a brand or a product visible, creating brand awareness, without a thoughtful process to target future buyers, is considered the “noise.” Basically, it is creating excitement around your brand by putting it out there for everyone to see. The truth is: not everyone is your potential client.

On the other hand, using the momentum of the noise and taking it just a step further in order to make your brand or a product visible and deliverable to your target audience and actual potential buyers, that’s considered great marketing. Do you see the difference?

The marketing strategies you will be reading in this article are the ones that will move your audience from a state of simple awareness and noise, to actual visibility by the clients you are trying to attract.

What is Digital Marketing?

At a high level, digital marketing refers to advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. Another word for digital marketing is online marketing.

Although it feels like the internet has existed forever, it hasn’t. Launched by Tim Berners-Lee and his team in 1991, the World Wide Web project didn’t really take off until the first successful mass-market browser, Netscape, was released in 1994. In the following two years, the number of people using the web soared from 16 million to 70 million.

While the internet has changed everything, literally everything, it is worth remembering that the old forms of marketing still exist and carry weight. Despite the growth in digital advertising, TV still takes a third of ad spend in the US and continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate.

Embracing digital trends does not mean discarding traditional marketing methods.

Still in 2020, Word of Mouth marketing impression results 5x more sales than a paid media impression and people are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend.

With this in mind, let’s cover the digital marketing strategies entrepreneurs and business owners need to learn in 2020.

Facebook Marketing

Facebook’s organic reach might have declined, but there’s a bright side.

Over the last 3 years, Facebook has worked hard to clean up their mess after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This forced the company to pivot and they have done a fantastic job!

Take a look at the top popular social networks based on users (represented in millions).

If you don’t think your skills are up to date with Facebook marketing, I recommend a recap of what’s new in Facebook Marketing in 2020.

I did a series for My Social Media University on the 2019-2020 Facebook Updates with 4 videos that will take you about 53 minutes to complete, and as a BONUS, Facebook Ads 2020! Sign up so you can learn all about Facebook Marketing, for free.

Facebook Messenger

Messenger marketing is becoming a very effective strategy to raise awareness and generate leads.

87.1% of U.S. marketers will use Facebook marketing in 2020. That’s according to estimates from eMarketer. It’s because of its opening rate in comparison to email marketing.

In an experiment by HubSpot, content delivered through Facebook Messenger had an open rate of 80 percent and a click rate of 13 percent. The same content delivered through email had an open rate of 33 percent and a click rate of 2.1 percent. In other words, email was completely outclassed by Messenger. Interesting, right?

This is a particular area where Facebook has been updating its platform to add automation, in particular, integrating features to book appointments, as well as to purchase products and services.

Digital consumers are more educated, impatient, and demanding. As a result, customized marketing is a trend we will continue to see more.

Think about Alexa and Google. What if you can create that level of interaction with your users? The great news, you can!

If you want to take your automation to the next level, and even have your own Alexa, you can have it with Manychat. Click here to learn the fundamentals of a chatbot. It’s a free course, hosted by Manychat.

Instagram Marketing

Some marketers will argue that Instagram should be the #1 social media platform, regarding engagement. If we consider that Instagram’s organic engagement, in comparison to the rest of the social media platforms, Instagram wins.

Instagram is no longer the app where you find teenagers showcasing their pretty filters. There’s more to it than that.

As an entrepreneur, you will want to learn how to reap the benefits of Instagram for Business to give your brand more visibility in front of potential clients.

Check out Later.com for free training and detailed guides. And of course, I’m here to help you with implementation and high-level strategy.

Search Engine Marketing (Content Marketing)

SEO is, by far, one of the most complex digital marketing skills to learn, but it’s not because it’s difficult. The reason is that Search Engine Optimization is process-based.

There Are 3 Main Types Of Seo That An Seo Strategist Can Focus On:

Image result for off page seo vs on page seo

On-page SEO: This SEO focuses on the content that’s “on the page,” and how to optimize that content to help boost the website’s ranking for specific keywords.

Off-page SEO: This SEO focuses on the links that are being directed to the website from elsewhere on the internet. The number of “backlinks,” and the publishers carrying those links, that link to your website helps you build trust in the eyes of a search engine. This causes your website to rank higher as a result.

Technical SEO: This SEO focuses on a website’s architecture, examining the back-end of a particular website to see how each webpage is “technically” set up. Google cares as much about the code of a website as it does its content, making this specialty quite important to a website’s search engine ranking.

At the very least, you should learn how to generate content that can ignite your visibility using SEO.

SEO isn’t a skill that you can just learn from a video. Since you will need to analyze data to understand the results and get insights, we recommend learning that in a practical way.

If you’re interested in learning SEO, our Business Accelerator Program is doing live workshops and webinars.

This article features 10 SEO tools I personally use.

SEMRush Academy is a great resource to learn SEO, for free. Click here to check it out.

Content Marketing

As content marketing becomes more common, so does its presence in business budgets. Research indicates that 53 percent of businesses have established content marketing plans and budgets.

As an entrepreneur, it’s important to stay current with these trends. If you haven’t invested in learning content marketing, there’s a good chance you don’t have a robust content marketing plan. Your digital assets: social media accounts, website, landing pages, and emails are just tools where you share promotions, but that’s not enough!

Brands need to be humanized. Users want to interact with people; the best way to achieve this is to adopt a unique digital-based personality.

Content marketing is the best digital marketing strategy you can ever learn. Julia McCoy offers an amazing certification in content marketing. Click here to check it out.

Reputation Marketing

What is reputation marketing? Although the term is often used interchangeably with online reputation management (ORM), it doesn’t mean the same thing.

As an entrepreneur or business owner you need to know the difference, so here’s a more accurate definition:

Reputation marketing highlights and amplifies positive brand content like customer reviews through traditional and digital marketing channels to boost sales. In short, it’s a strategy to promote your brand’s existing good reputation rather than repair a damaged one.

That’s an important distinction to keep in mind. While reputation marketing does have a positive impact on brand image, it generally won’t improve your search results. Since your marketing initiatives will prompt consumers to research your brand on Google, you’d better have positive content immediately for them to discover.

Reputation management uses SEO, content creation, social media, public relations and so much more to establish positive search reputations for individuals and companies. Those strategies strengthen a brand’s online presence in a natural way to bury negative search results. As a result, search engines show people your brand’s most favorable content.

Once a business has earned favorable media mentions and positive online reviews, reputation marketing services can then spin that content into campaigns and case studies.

Developing an impeccable online presence goes beyond your online first impression these days. Users like to search and “dig” to see if they can trust the brand. You can’t control what they search. But you certainly can control what they are able to find. This is why it’s important to take control of your online reputation.

Want Digital Marketing Courses + Mentoring?

That’s what I do! I’m a digital marketing educator. I teach individuals and organizations in all things digital marketing; from social media basics and lead generation to UX and SEO.

If you want to discuss details about my marketing courses, you can book a quick call here or check out my Business Accelerator Program where you get all the courses, plus live strategy calls.

Hey, don’t forget to get my free Facebook Updates Class- free + I’m giving a BONUS class on Facebook Ads 2020.

June 6, 2019June 17, 2019

How To Use Facebook Groups for Business To Generate Revenue

Every small business should be on Facebook. With more than 2.27 billion monthly users, small businesses can use Facebook in a number of ways to promote services, increase customer support and boost recognition.

The question is not about if your business should be on Facebook. It’s more about how can your business get visibility on Facebook.

Facebook has suffered multiple changes and updates. I don’t want you to panic, but certainly, it’s important for you to know about Facebook’s latest algorithm change, how does that look, and how what Facebook marketing strategies you should be focusing on.

Facebook’s Algorithm Changes Again

Facebook likes to throw a few curveballs our way, and they’re changing the algorithm once again to keep us on our toes (and, you know, improve the whole user experience and all that).

They just announced two different ranking updates to affect what people are seeing in their feeds.

The first prioritizes friends that the individual user is most likely to want to hear from (based on past engagement) and the second focuses on increasing visibility to the links that the user might find most valuable.

While having more relevant content showing up in users’ feeds sounds like a dream, Facebook’s past algorithms haven’t always been friendly to Pages with their declining organic reach.

Facebook has claimed, however, that these algorithm updates are not designed to impact Pages; they’ve also hinted that if you’re sharing links that your audience will find valuable, it may even help you.

You Can See The Algorithm In Effect

Let’s do this test. Open your Facebook App, and go to your feeds. I’ve done this with my clients and we all have noticed the same. Your top posts are from friends who have active conversations on messenger with you. If you scroll, you won’t noticed updates from business pages or from ads, until you scroll a few times.

This is not the only change Facebook has made to its algorithm this year, which takes us as marketing strategists to put all the dots together in order to come up with a game plan that considers all the changes as a whole.

See Facebook Algorithm History here.

Facebook wants to reward video creators who produce quality content for viewers. Over the coming months, many updates will be implemented to distribute more original videos that engage viewers beyond the one-minute mark, particularly videos longer than 3 minutes. Videos that receive repeat viewings will also see a boost in News Feed distribution. Conversely, videos that do not offer much originality or value will see demoted distribution as well as videos and Pages that promote sharing schemes.

Facebook Marketing Strategy

Research from Facebook shows that groups are seeing a lot more engagement than Pages. This is because Facebook groups enable members to start conversations more seamlessly than a Facebook Page does, while it’s also part of the broader shift away from public sharing to discussions in more enclosed, private space.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Jessica, you’re really asking me to put another social community on my plate?”

Yes I am, but only if it makes sense for your business (if you will be generating revenue), and/or if you have the time to maintain a Facebook Group.

Open A Facebook Group Using Your Business Page

Facebook wants us to have real interactions with their users. Since Facebook Business Pages are limited in the interactions they can have with users, Facebook Business Groups make the most sense.

Recent research shows there is a gap between what businesses believe trust means and what it means for consumers. So it’s important for businesses to communicate effectively with their audiences, whether through news articles, events, blogs, social media platforms or other vehicles.

Your best bet in building relationships with your audience in the social media landscape is to build relationships and a sense of community.

This, of course, can be a little difficult via post threads and comments, and building a community on your own website can take tech (and money) that you may not have access to.

Facebook groups enable you to build a sense of community, which is great to get your message in front of potential customers and get them to trust you.

To start, go to your Page settings, make sure your template has groups enabled, and then create a Facebook Group. To do that, click “Create Group”. If you have a Facebook Group already, you will be able to “Link Your Group”.

Once your Business Page claims your group as a Business Facebook Group, it will appear in your Business Page and your page will be able to interact on that group. Therefore, you don’t need to use your personal profile to engage with your community.

Your team can help you manage your group without the hazard of using a personal Facebook profile. Check your Business Page settings, go to Groups, and you will be able to manage roles, add other group owners, remove them, etc.

Advertise Your Facebook Business Group

If you want to build a community, I recommend adding your Facebook Business Group as a call to action. This is a new feature so you might have to edit your current call to action.

By changing your Business Page’s button to “visit group”, your call to action will allow you to convert your Facebook Page users and potential customers to Facebook Group users. And this is where your whole new strategy will start!

You might want to activate ads to get more users; but that’s only if you have a clear content marketing and a conversion plan for those users. If you do, then, go ahead and promote your page, just to get people to like your page, which will take them to your main call to action (visit group).

Another way to use Facebook Ads to get more people visiting and joining your group is by sharing your group as a post, and place an ad to promote the post. Do not use boost. Make sure you are using the more advanced features to target the right people.

How Many Business Groups You Can Have?

A Facebook Business Page has the ability to start a group or add a group. You can add multiple groups, but that’s not really the question. The question is, how many groups, strategically, your business will be able to grow, nurture, and achieve conversions?

My advice for any social media marketing tactic: simplicity is the key. You might want to have a group for your paid clients, and a group where you are leading a community of like-minded individuals.

What if I am a realtor, insurance agent, but I don’t own my brand?

If you don’t own your brand, meaning, you represent a corporate brand, remember that you still can take advantage of building your personal brand.

You can open a Facebook Business Page and a Facebook Business Group too. Focus more on local interests, so you can build a broader audience. Then, use content marketing to build trust. Lead your Facebook Group with the same principles you would lead a networking group. Relationships should come first.

Top 3 Activities To Drive Conversions

Remember, a Facebook Business Group is not a point of sales. It’s a point where you build trust.

To build trust and ignite people’s interest in your business, I recommend these top 3 activities:

One: Host events for your group.

These events can be online, using the watch party feature. I wish I had this feature when I was building my direct sales business

Two: Start a poll.

The best way to know who are your top engaged users, is by launching a poll. You will be able to see them and interact with them.

Three: Welcome new members post.

I wait until we accumulate up to 50 people and then launch the welcome post. On that post, customize the message and add, for example, add a link to your upcoming event.

I’m telling you all my secrets here! I hope you’re taking great notes!

Facebook Marketing Has A Lot To Offer For Small Business Owners

If you’re interested in generating a powerful Facebook Marketing Strategy that can help your business boosting awareness and conversions, I would love to strategize with you!

I just shared a step-by-step tutorial for my clients on how to incorporate Facebook Business Group to drive more website traffic to their landing pages, webinars, events, etc.

Now that you know all about Facebook Groups, it’s your turn to implement! Let me know if you have any questions.

Ready to accelerate in your business? Check my invitation to Entrepreneurs’ Inner Circle here.

November 6, 2018November 12, 2019

How To Grow A Facebook Group For Business (2020 Edition)

Are you a Facebook Group Admin? Trying to see how to turn your group into some of your most powerful customer acquisition channels?

This article will discuss the best practices to build a Facebook Business group that actually brings you revenue.

Before we begin, let’s affirm your decision to create a Facebook group! Chances are that you started out with a page for your business or service and have discovered that a Facebook group will offer you better opportunities to connect with your audience. You then opened your group and you can see some metrics but you’re open to get some guidance on what do they mean.

Facebook’s Latest Efforts Empower Private Conversations

After widespread scandal over mishandling user data and other calamities, Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced a major priority shift and details his new vision for Facebook. Private conversations is the platform’s main focus, moving forward.

Essentially, privacy, security and meaningful interactions are part of the platform’s new, main focus and act as a complement to existing, more public spaces within Facebook. Facebook communities which value security, authenticity and foster personal connections will reap the greatest rewards.

If you’ve been a Facebook group admin for a while, you have noticed the changes they have recently rolled. The new metrics give group admins a greater insight about their community.

If I have to guess, group admins should expect more features coming up in 2020.

Facebook has switched up its algorithms to make maintaining both a page and a group essential to reaching your desired audience. However, the two have very different functions.

Let’s Briefly Examine The Difference Between Pages And Groups And How They Can Work In Tandem

I like the analogy that Zuckerberg has used, asking us to think of a page like a bustling town square. Most importantly, a page is public and meant to attract a broad (but not necessarily exclusive) audience.

A Facebook page is a great place to showcase content, because it can be accessed by anyone. But that feature cuts both ways. Users can arrive by way of search, they needn’t have liked nor followed the page. And, even if they have taken those steps, Facebook’s algorithms mean that even engaged users may not see new posts from the page.

In contrast, a Facebook group is the digital equivalent of the living room.

That’s where you have private and more in-depth conversations with your audience.

It’s an exclusive space where the moderators decide who can be admitted and what rules members must follow.

Once your carefully selected audience is assembled, group members will interact with each other and even begin creating their own related content. This is what ignites brand awareness and leads to ultimately, business growth.

And that’s why you’re here today! Learning strategies to build a community in the right way.

Ingredients To Grow Your Facebook Business Group

1- Build Trust Within Your Members

If there’s something you need in order to grow your group is trust. Once you earn trust from a community, it will grow organically, from word of mouth.

Raise awareness about your mission. Make sure to be transparent. If you’re building a group with a hidden agenda, it won’t get you too far.

One of the fastest ways to build trust is via collaboration. Make sure that every new group member feels welcomed, accepted, and supported. They will find value and you will start seeing new members, invited by members who trust in the value of your community.

2- Be Consistent

Consistency is key for business owners seeing the ROI from a Facebook Group. If you’re struggling with coming to your group consistently, program campaigns that you can host within the group.

Some of the campaigns you can host:

Giveaways
Facebook live- interview other members
Launch a challenge!

3- Promote Your Facebook Group

Promoting your group is key to get new members. You can promote your group online and offline.

Wait, did we say offline? Yes. You can invite people to join your group when you’re networking! That’s one of the easiest ways to get targeted members joining your community. Don’t be shy to ask!

Online, you can promote your group using your Facebook Busines Page, your personal profile, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. But don’t stop there. Consider sharing your invite in your blog, email signature, and even via SMS.

A pro tip: offer something valuable for those who join!

4- Create A Specific Content Marketing Plan For Facebook Groups

Creating a group that people look forward to engaging takes just one thing: great content. When you give users the kind of content they expect, they keep coming for more.

To succeed, your content needs to be:

Relevant to your audience
All about them, not about you
Content that activates conversations
New, fresh, never boring
Pro tip: encourage members to share content (not promotions)

5- Group Rules

Having rules will help you moderate the discussion. If a group member violates the rules, you can remove a post and send them a notification (optional).

Go to Moderate Group
Create Rules
Press “create rule”
Customize them to fit your audience and promote a respectful environment

6- Assign Badges To Your Group Members

Nobody joins a group to feel excluded. Facebook allows you to recognize your members with badges. Make sure you have this feature on.

To find badges:

Edit group settings
Manage badges

7- Group Metrics

Group insights are a great tool to measure the effects of your marketing activities. A very important rule: check the metrics quickly and watch for trends. If you see a post that generated great engagement, do more of that!

Insights are also great to find sponsors and influencers. They can allow you to show the real reach and power of your community. Use them!

Read my article on Social Media Examiner on How To Understand Metrics

8- Ask Pending Member Questions

When you go to group settings, you will see Member Request Settings. The rule here is simple: don’t overuse this feature. Nobody wants to spend minutes completing a long questionnaire.

Limit to 3 questions with short answers. If you have a paid group, this is where you will ask them to validate their purchase or enter a code.

Pro tip: Groups don’t have a report with email addresses, so if you ask for emails, make sure you enter the information.

Hacker tip: A Growth Hacker Extractor extension to extract Facebook and LinkedIn for the sole purpose of generating leads. Leads Extractor is a powerful scraping tool to boost your company or product. The tool extracts first name, last name, company name, company position and profile url from LinkedIn, Facebook groups, Facebook page likes or followers.

9- Welcome New Members

One of the top posts of our group is welcome to new members. I always add a link that helps us promote either a high-value content or an invitation to our event.

I recommend to do a welcome post once a week, so you can accumulate over 25 members or so. The maximum tags allowed on this post is 50, so don’t go over.

10- Your Group Description

Keep it clear and feel free to add your freebies! This is what everyone who wants to join the group will read.

Here’s a template for your group description:

Welcome
Who is a great fit for the group
What’s in there for members
What do they do once they join
Important details

Here is the description of my group:

Hi there! Welcome to Professionals & Entrepreneurs of Austin Group. If you are here is because you have a MISSION to expand a purpose-driven business.

If you are a professional, entrepreneur, or owner of a local business in the Austin area, this is a group that you want to have as a favorite.

Please check the announcements! https://www.facebook.com/groups/keepnetworkingweird/announcements/

Save this link – www.NetworkingEventsAustin.com

This is where we post all our events

Housekeeping stuff:

✔️Add the group in your favorites so you don’t miss the chance to connect with someone.

✔️Everyone matters.

✔️Everything matters.

✔️ The more you give, the more you get.

✔️ We have regular meetings: Happy Hour at Hotel Granduca, Strategic Luncheons, and plenty of opportunities to connect and expand your network here!

Will sales happen here? Of course yes. Will they happen by you coming to the group and “paste” your links? Probably not.

People buy you. So they need to like you, trust you and believe in you.

Who am I? I’m Jessica Campos, co-founder of Marketing For Greatness, a recovered attorney, now forensic marketer, passionate about building conversion funnels. www.marketingforgreatness.com

We want to hear how you help others and deliver value to the world. Let’s help each other expand our networks, businesses and make the world a better place along the way:-)

-> My police alert (this post is pinned at the top and every new member must read before posting)

📺📺📺

Before posting, please read

📺📺📺

We get it, you want 📞📸💽🎥🔋💵💡⚖️💎💴 -> all of that! Fame, name, leads, referrals, and more business.

Guess what? The 2,000 individuals here want that too!

How can you succeed?

🚧🚧🚧 Imagine you’re invited to a party. You’re walking in. You start smiling and making some eye contact. Then, silently, you interact with some people.

Do you open the door and scream “Please BUY FROM ME!!!!!”??? 🤯🤯🤯No!

Same here! We are a family. One thing that you should know is that we have been doing events for over a year and we have invited our friends to join the group.

This group wasn’t created to make leads.

This group was the result of a successful series of events and we offered this platform as a directory to follow up and keep the conversations.

By doing that, meaning, meeting people here, we can “speed date” during our live events.

You get it now?

If I were you, here’s how you will do it as a new member!!

💡💡💡💡

Talk to us “hello Tribe” my friend _____ invited me and I’m thankful to be here.”

💡💡💡💡

Use a video – make a difference! Tell us about you- a Hello Post!

💡💡💡💡

Before asking, give. Read what others post.

💡💡💡💡

Maybe you want to promote your awesome event. Of course it would make sense to share it with another networking group. But guess what?

This is a community that protects their identity. It’s like you going to the party and then inviting your friend’s friends to do something else with you.

Would you do that???? Probably not! So, talk to us and see if it’s a fit. This is more from the common sense aspect.

For example- if your event is at the same time and date that our event, why would we promote you if we are promoting our event? You get it?

Believe it or not, I’ve seen it here. People have actually organized separated events overlapping our event- at the SAME location. Is that cool? Boooooo! No. 👎

Common sense I guess isn’t enough and that’s why we are writing this!

💡💡💡💡

We have police 👮‍♀️ so your links won’t get through. Save your time and effort and don’t share massive posts here. I’M SERIOUS. 👮

💡💡💡💡

Make time to connect. Again we are humans.

💡💡💡💡

Do you know how can you accelerate the most and earn trust? 💞Add value to the group! 💞 Invite your business connections here. 💞 Come to our events. 💞Add this group as favorites and once a day come and catch up.

Who the heck am I?

You can find plenty if you google. However, send me a friend request! I’m here! I love connecting for real!

I can’t wait to help you succeeding in any way I can!

Welcome again!

Let’s consider this a restart!!!

Cool?

(Like and comment)

—-

I totally recommend that you establish clear rules, or else your group will turn into a garage sales group.

Facebook is adding more features to Facebook Groups (like adding your Pixel and ads). Expect another updated post in a few months!

I know this seems like a lot of work. I can simplify a strategy for you (and give you even more hacks)!

If you’re looking for an online marketing strategist who can help you build a strategy to attract ideal clients and grow your business (for real) let’s talk!

Schedule your complimentary forensic marketing session today!

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